DOING THE RIGHT THING

Well, would you believe it? I was dead certain the Supreme Court would come up with another 5-4 decision, conservatives over liberals, against the health bill. My respect for Chief Justice Roberts as an independent thinker rose considerably. Certainly, his credentials were always impressive, but I thought his inherent conservatism would make him join the other, but objectivity and sense of law prevailed.

Do you think our recalcitrant congress might earn a lesson from this example? I doubt it, but, in Hamlet's words, " 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished". Wouldn't it be wonerful if congressman could sit down now, carefully examine the health care law and find a bipartisan basis to fix it?

I woner how the Fred Astaire of the political right, our presumptive Republican candidate for President, will tap dance around this one? I can't wait for Romney to debate Obama and answer the question the President should pose as to why, as Governor of Massachusetts, he was for and enacted a health care bill very similar to Obamacare but now cannot accept it, the very model of political inconsistency and idiosyncracy.

In any case, the law survives, albeit with limitations. Can Washington find a compromise? Probably not, but hope springs eternal and all that jazz!

THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS POLITICAL

“The whole experience makes me want to pull aside politicians and business leaders and maybe everyone else and offer some pious advice: Don’t try to be everyman. Don’t pretend you’re a member of every community you visit. Don’t try to be citizens of some artificial globalized community. Go deeper into your own tradition. Call more upon the geography of your past. Be distinct and credible. People will come.”



These wise words were the final paragraph of a column in the New York Times by David Brooks, one of my favorite columnists. He had written this column about attending Bruce Springsteen concerts in Spain with a group (or should it be groupie?) of friends. He noted 50,000 Spanish concertgoers of all ages screaming with Bruce, “Born in the USA”. He took this incident and built upon it as an example of “paracosms”, internal worlds of comfort and stability that we build in order to learn to deal with reality. These Spanish fans, in their minds, were one with Bruce Springsteen and “born in the USA”, a collective reality they built together. From there Brooks went on to explain how we “particularize” experiences drawn from our own background and how these experiences help us to deal with the world. He decries the globalized non-specific thinkers of today who don’t relate their experiences to life and live in fuzzy abstractions.


How this applies to our Presidential candidates. Don’t try to be an amorphous everyman and to fit everybody’s criteria; rather, take a position of showing who you are and what you are. Mitt Romney, who probably is a moderate centrist in his core, is trying to be all things to all conservatives in his party, playing up to the far right constituency. Obama is equally guilty of composing a synthetic personality comprised of diverse parts, being a friend to liberals and a safe centrist to the middle so that he can attract enough moderate independents and disaffected Republicans to pull off a repeat election. Trying to be all thing to all people is hypocritical and wrong.


Be yourselves, boys, and let it all hang out. I think it is possible people might come. Let’s see what would happen if they exposed their true natures.

HOW NOT TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS

The LGBT did not advance their cause yesterday by one of the invited guests at the White House flipping twin birds at a portrait of Ronald Reagan. Mind you, I understand that Reagan was, to put it mildly, not a favorite of the gay community in his unfeeling stance about AIDS. If you are trying to convince straight America that the gay community should be accepted as a part of America---which it is---that is not a very good job of p.r.in winning converts to your cause.


I have never been homophobic, having had many gay friends throughout my long life. I have always cringed, however, when I see blatant examples of gay pride going over the top, like floats in gay pride parades showing gay couple simulating sexual contact, which is an infantile way to "promote" your cause. March in a parade, fine, but don't make a billboard of your sexuality.I don't give a damn what anyone does in the privacy of his or her bedroom: simply don't force your views on me.


The LGBT is winning the battle of acceptance. Like Civil Rights, it is not quick enough for those seeking full rights. But flipping birds in theWhite House does not win friends and influence people and only sets back the cause. I realize such incidents are rare and that the vast majority of gays and lesbians go about their business of seeking acceptance and fitting into daily life.


Be smart, LGBT. Just keep on fighting the good fight.

QUO VADIS

I have read several articles from a variety of sources regarding character and the lack of moral values so prevalent today.  I suppose philosophers and moralists throughout history have decried this problem, but I must say I, too, am concerned with who and where we are today.


It seems our moral compasses are somehow out of kilter and skewing wildly, leading us to bad decisions and bad places. Right choices seem rarer, and expediency and the easy course seem to be winning out in too many situations.


Look at some of today's news. Take the Sandusky case. If only a few key people had done the right thing at the right time years ago, this whole mess might have been stopped with the tragic implications of lives ruined or marred. There still would have been pain and loss but to a much lesser extent. Or the Roger Clemens trial. A poor presentation  and mishandling of the case by the government has freed Clemens, although in the court of public opinion he is overwhelmingly guilty. The implications of a baseball hero who corrupted the rules and his talent is an all too frequent story today.  Or a variety of banking and business scandals where morality was thrown out the window in the name of greater profits, even if the majority of people were hurt badly in the process. And, of course, we have many congresspeople who put self-interest ahead of public interest time and time again.


Easy choices, wrong choices, arrogant choices all add up to leaving us wandering in limbo. A moral fog seems to have enveloped us, and we can't see our way clear. We need to reorient that moral compass.


Quo vadis---where are we going?  We need some direction to the right places. I hope we find it before it's too late.

LA VITA CORPORATA

The Big Guy, guest columnist on Grumpy's blog, wrote a good one today about the firing of a very capable man in a large corporation and the shabby way in which it was done.

I have been long retired, but I have experienced the machinations and calloused ways of big corporations. I sold my small private company years ago to a conglomerate and saw some of the dunder-headed decisions made by reputedly smart businesses. The conglomerate that took over my company wanted to become a powerhouse in the sporting goods business and had purchased several small but viable companies to achieve that end. Within fifteen years, the whole sporting goods division was gone,the main reason being a total lack of marketing sense. They did have an established industrial division and managed to hold that together long enough to merge with a bigger, hugely successful industrial conglomerate.

When the conglomerate took over my company, we had begun to develop strength in the skiwear market with ski underwear and turtlenecks. The conglomerate had bought another small distributor of fashion skiwear made in Austria. This distributor was doing $400,000 in the American market, a quarter of a million of which was with one customer---not a healthy state of affairs. The conglomerate dropped the distributor and turned over to us the distribution of this Austrian fashion line, and in a three year period we built it up to over three million dollars with future prospects continuing to climb. Let me add, this was over thirty years ago, and three million was a healthy sum.

The conglomerate had a three-year contract with the Austrian ski-fashion company. Then the Chairman of the conglomerate, in his infinite wisdom, made the unilateral decision to terminate the contract because "he didn't like the Nazi son-of-a-bitch who ran the company". I argued with him that I knew how to handle "the Nazi son-of-a-bitch" and that we could be doing five to six million within a year or two. (The Austrian owner was actually a good guy underneath but had that Teutonic stubborn streak. When we used to go at it, I would finally say, "O.K., are you ready for World War III?" He would break up laughing and then we would get things done.)

In spite of my arguments to keep the line and reach dramatically increased sales, which were highly profitable as well, the chairman said no. Another American distributor took over the sales, and guess what? In two years they were doing six million!

After this experience I said to myself: hey, old boy, you've lost control of your destiny, I think it's time to move on and began to make plans to leave and start another business, which I did a year later. The conglomerate was not unhappy, because they liked "their own people" anyway.

The moral of this story is: Business decisions are frequently not rational but based on emotion and personality. And they certainly can be cold-blooded, as well as irrational. Live and learn.

FIVE MORE MONTHS--OH MY GOD!

It is almost too much to contemplate, this election season which is beginning to pick up steam now. We're going to have to listen to five months (almost) of hyperbole, persiflage, slander, innuendo, distortions and outright lies as the candidates go at each other.

In the meantime Congress fiddles while America burns with the polarization of the two parties, drawing lines in the sand or exposing their holsters for the shootout. America is famed for its violent inflammatory elections, and I sense this one may be near the top.

I note another Federal Reserve President in Chicago has come out for more stimulus with the usual outcry from the far right that this is socialistic. I saw a neo-Con blog the other day, questioning whether Obama is a socialist or a fascist! Ah yes, the beat goes on...

Maybe my wife and I should take an extended vacation from retirement and go abroad until after November. Of course, we won't, but it is a tempting thought.

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

It almost seemed ordained, those final holes of Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament with the newly-constructed Tiger Woods conjuring up some of the old Tiger Woods magic with that incredible flop shot on the 16th to win the tournament. It had the drama a lot of golf enthusiasts had been waiting for a long time.

The reconstruction of Tiger Wood's game and psyche has been a work in process for two and a half years. First, he had to reinvent himself and restore the shattered ego. He will never be a loveable personality, and he had to learn to live with the tarnished image and show he had character. Then he went through a total overhaul of the mechanics of his swing, a process of going one step forward and two back for a long time.

We saw glimpses of it sporadically earlier this year. He put it together briefly for Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill tourney where he won for the first time in a regular tournament since 2009 (not including that limited field win in 2011 in his own tournament). Then he regressed and looked terrible in a few tournaments, including the Masters. He had begun to look better the last few matches, even as he struggled to make the cut at the Players Championship. This past weekend, it all came together.

His deportment on the course was new. He would hit a drive, immediately pick up his tee, knowing he had hit it right where he wanted, and walk down the fairway. His irons were right on, as you watched him hold the finish of his swing and see the ball go where directed. And, this week he could putt. A masterful all-around game.

I don't foresee Tiger Woods dominating as he once did. He's 36, not old, but facing a horde of young talent who are not afraid of him and have the confidence to win. As I said, he is not loveable, but you cannot help but admire the prodigious talent when it all comes together with his flair for the dramatic and unexpected.

Welcome back, Tiger. I know you'll keep us entertained for several more years. And I believe some majors are in your purview.